Study after study show a “misuse” rate of less than 1% in patients prescribed opioids for acute pain or chronic pain. And numerous large studies show an even lower overdose rate from opioids used in the medical setting.
Canadian policymakers justify the prohibition on compensation with moral considerations and with concerns about the safety of plasma collected from paid donors.
However, 72.6% of survey respondents in Canada are in favor of compensating plasma donors. Among those in favor of legalizing compensation for donors, the highest-rated motive was to guarantee a higher domestic supply. The majority of the respondents who were in favor of legalizing compensation also agreed that compensation would not run against mainstream Canadian moral and societal values.
It also frees consumers from Obamacare’s price controls, which are eroding coverage for the sick. Instead, consumers can purchase consecutive short-term plans, tied together with renewal guarantees that protect them from medical underwriting when they fall ill.
As President Trump’s profligate spending, trade wars, and farmer bailouts undo whatever good his tax cuts achieved, and as the inhumanity of his immigration policies tear at the hearts of parents everywhere, this one rule at least should embolden others within the administration to push these and other federal policies in the direction of individual liberty.
Unnecessary ambulance use (when the patient could have taken a less expensive means of transportation without a reduction in health outcome) is partially due to lack of alternatives. Recently, though, alternatives have become available. Many individuals have started to seek cheaper transport from ride-sharing services such as Lyft and Uber. In addition, while ambulances prioritize patient safety and typically insist on transporting a person to the nearest hospital, ride-sharing cars allow the patient to pick which hospital to go to. This is important because farther facilities can have differing results for the same condition. Also, the closest hospital may not be in network for the patient, and therefore directing a ride-sharing vehicle to a farther hospital would lower the hospital bill itself as well.
Uber, initially a limo-hailing service, expanded into the ride-sharing industry with UberX in 2012. By May 2017, Uber had facilitated 5 billion rides in 76 countries and more than 450 cities.
1. The ideal solution is for the government to eliminate licensing of medical professionals altogether. This option would not compromise safety, as licensing doesn’t actually promote safety. Most patient protections actually come from private actors such as hospitals, health insurers, medical malpractice liability insurers, and others that evaluate physicians they allow to practice, reimburse, and indemnify.
2. Redefine the location of the interaction between patient and physician as being based on the location of the physician rather than the patient, a change which could be accomplished through state legislation or federal intervention. Medical professionals would be subject to the rules and regulations of their home state but would no longer bear the burden of tracking and complying with changes in licensing requirements across multiple states. Eliminating this costly and time-consuming process would allow for easier entrance into the market for telemedicine services. In addition, a single state-licensing board can more easily compile complaints related to a physician’s services and sanction errant physicians than can multiple medical boards, increasing patient safety.
4. The federal government could offer national telemedicine licenses. Such a system would not be a positive solution, as it would require a new federal agency, increased costs, and likely be susceptible to capture by physician groups that seek to erect barriers to telemedicine.
The Compact protects the status quo — specifically the power of the state medical boards and the revenues that flow to them from physicians who must seek multiple licenses to practice telemedicine.
One way Obamacare tried to reduce the cost of health insurance was by instituting minimum requirements on the share of premiums that commercial insurers must spend on medical claims. Known as the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), this share is a measure of the actuarial fairness of insurance.
If an insurer collects $100 in premiums in the individual market, but spends only $79 paying medical claims that year, they are required to write a $1 check to policyholders. However, the insurer must bear the full administrative cost of keeping expenditures below $80 but reaps none of the rewards. That is, minimum MLR requirements encourage higher costs, not lower.
When Republicans took power in January, they controlled both branches of Congress and the presidency, Obamacare was hugely unpopular with voters, and the health care law was spiraling into failure. Yet somehow, Obamacare not only survives, it is now more popular than ever. So, what went wrong?
1. It’s hard taking things away from people: Republicans tried hard to pretend that there were no losers under their proposals, but the public understood that, if you slowed the growth of Medicaid or reduced subsidies, some people would either pay more or get less. It was always going to be hard for Republicans to repeal or replace Obamacare even if they got everything else right. As we saw, they didn’t.
2. Institutional barriers: Provisions — like allowing the sale of insurance across state lines — were not only among the most popular Republican ideas, they were also important for making insurance more affordable. But, proposals such as this were not possible to include in the bill
3. No plan:For 7 years, every Republican running for president or Congress (or any other office for that matter) campaigned on opposition to Obamacare. Congress even voted some 50 times to repeal all or part of the health care law. But once the stakes became real rather than symbolic this year, it quickly became apparent that Republicans had no actual plan for what would replace Obamacare.
4. No Message: The average American has no idea what the Republican bill would do to their premiums, their coverage, their ability to see the doctor of their choice. There is a compelling case to be made for how free market health care reform can bring down costs, while improving quality and choice. No one ever made that case.
The question, then, is whether the president and congressional Republicans have learned anything from this defeat. So far, there’s no evidence that they have.
Like its counterpart, the House-passed “American Health Care Act,” the Senate bill would not repeal Obamacare. Indeed, it’s not even fair to call it a partial repeal or “Obamacare-lite.”
Consumers would continue to struggle under Obamacare’s regulations, but those costs would focus attention on their source. The lines of accountability would be clearer if Republicans signed off on legislation that seems designed to rescue Obamacare rather than repeal and replace it.
It is an old joke among health-policy wonks that what the American people really want from health-care reform is unlimited care, from the doctor of their choice, with no wait, free of charge. For Republicans, trying to square this circle has led to panic, paralysis, and half-baked policy proposals such as the Obamacare-replacement bill that passed the House last month. For Democrats, it has led from simple disasters such as Obamacare itself to a position somewhere between fantasy and delusion.
The latest effort to fix health care with fairy dust comes from California, whose Senate voted last week to establish a statewide single-payer system. As ambitious as the California legislation is, encompassing everything from routine checkups to dental and nursing-home care, its authors haven’t yet figured out how it will be paid for. The plan includes no copays, premiums, or deductibles. Perhaps that’s because the legislature’s own estimates suggest it would cost at least $400 billion, more than the state’s entire present-day budget. In fairness, legislators hope to recoup about half that amount from the federal government and the elimination of existing state and local health programs. But even so, the plan would necessitate a $200 billion tax hike. One suggestion being bandied about is a 15 percent state payroll tax. Ouch.
The utopian fantasy of a single-payer system is attractive to many voters, but it would destroy the American economy.
The cost of California’s plan is right in line with that of other recent single-payer proposals. For example, last fall, Colorado voters rejected a proposal to establish a single-payer system in that state that was projected to cost more than $64 billion per year by 2028. Voters apparently took note of the fact that, even after figuring in savings from existing programs, possible federal funding, and a new 10 percent payroll tax, the plan would have still run a $12 billion deficit within ten years.
A D.C.-based public policy research organization (or "think tank") dedicated to the values of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.
